A Benefits Mindset
What did we gain in return for all that work?
Have you ever made a major purchase — like buying a house or a car — without having an excellent idea of their value? Have you ever spent a year of your life working on a personal project, not knowing if it would benefit you or someone you care about?
Me neither.
Now, let’s compare your innovative thinking to that of the corporate world. In a study completed in 2018, the Project Management Institute (PMI) found that:
“…only 31% of organizations were prioritizing the development of a comprehensive value delivery capability within their organizations.”
In other words, in most companies, projects weren’t being prioritized according to the anticipated benefits they would provide. I would hazard to guess that prioritization is too often based on which stakeholder has the biggest title and the largest voice, rather than knowing which projects are expected to provide the most significant benefits. Remember that benefits are not deliverables (outputs) from a project. Instead, they are measurements of the value enabled by the deliverable (outcomes).
These outcomes can typically be grouped into functional categories when measuring project benefits. For example, the benefit categories used by WGU’s Ed Tech department are:
- Growth — Projects that help increase the number of students who choose WGU for their educational needs or that increase revenue in another way
- Productivity — Projects that are focused on saving money, saving unnecessary labor, or preventing other types of waste
- Student Experience — Projects that reduce friction in the student journey and enhance the probability of student success
- Compliance — Projects that ensure WGU can meet all regulatory expectations
- Failure/Loss Prevention — Projects that help prevent anticipated future failure (breaking point) of systems and processes, including protection of systems from bad actors
- Cost Avoidance — Projects that prevent anticipated future cost increases or that reduce a current hard cost
- System Health — Projects that strengthen technology and reduce technical debt
With a bit of strategic thinking, calculating, and reporting, outcomes in every one of the above categories can be envisioned, described, and measured. Even back-of-the-envelope calculations can help increase certainty regarding anticipated value.
When companies fail to describe and measure the benefits they want so that teams can collaborate on achieving them, they are doomed to the alternative: Focusing on project outputs. (Was the project delivered on time? Did we stay within scope? Did we come in under budget?) The team might do a great job delivering the project, but the outputs may not meet anyone’s need nor delight the customer.
In my experience, benefits realization is a mindset — a practice to follow consistently. I particularly liked the way Lara Paton described it in her LinkedIn Learning course, “Business Benefits Realization Foundations.” Lara said that business benefits realization is a mindset that involves:
- Identifying the right initiatives
- Identifying expected benefits
- Building and delivering the solutions
- [Measuring and] sustaining value after release
She goes on further to say that the practice of business benefits realization:
- Enables the achievement of strategy
- Aligns work throughout the organization, so less is spent on low-value work
- Supports improved decision-making regarding proposed investments
- Provides visibility and transparency
- Increases the likelihood that outcomes will meet expectations
- Ensures accountability and continues improvement within the delivery
I agree with Lara wholeheartedly. I wouldn’t buy a house or a car without understanding their value. I wouldn’t waste my life on a personal project that didn’t have a clear purpose or anticipated outcome.
Simply stated, a benefits mindset makes business (and personal) sense and leads to better decisions.
